Spider-Man: Turn on the Laughs

Spider-Man is everywhere, even my last blog entry. I'm going to write a little more about Spider-Man. Growing up, I would read the occasional Spider-Man comic, but he was far from my favorite hero. Somewhere, there is a photo of a two year old me getting a Spider-Man t-shirt and you never saw a happier child. My mom tells me I really wanted that shirt. Now I really want that photo. But I didn't follow him or enjoy him as much as Superman or Batman. I've always considered myself a DC person, and I still do.

In fact, when it comes to Spider-Man, my fondest memory goes back just a little over 3 years ago. Spider-Man helped me through a very difficult time. When I lived in New Jersey, I had a beautiful cat named Peppi. She was the greatest little creature you ever met. Well she was if you were my mom, my sister or me. Otherwise, she probably tolerated you or didn't like you. That doesn't change the fact that we all loved this little cat and she loved us. Peppi was great.

I found her as a kitten my sophomore year of high school. This photo was taken not long after we first got her.

I'd never had a pet before and she quickly became part of the family. I'm guessing this happens with most pets. I haven't had one since I moved to California in 2007 but Marie and I are talking about adopting two cats soon.

But back to Peppi. This little girl lived to be 19 years old. Let me put that in human terms. Miss June 2010, Katie Vernola, was younger than my cat. Do you have any idea how awkward it is to realize your cat is older than the woman appearing as a centerfold in Playboy? And yes, that was the issue of Playboy that came with the 3D glasses, so I had to suffer the double humiliation of reading Playboy while also wearing 3D glasses and then realizing my cat was older than the centerfold.

Towards the end of 2010, Peppi got sick, and it came on fast. I won't make you sad with the details, but on December 4, 2010, we had to put the little girl down. My mom and sister called me from the vet and had me on speakerphone. It was tough to get through and I was 3000 miles away. I hadn't seen Peppi in over a year and now I'd never get to see her again. I was devastated but Spider-Man cheered me up.

There was a Broadway musical that was being prepared at the time and it kept getting hit with delays. Articles were appearing all the time about this show, "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark", and all of the problems it was having. Conan O'Brien, who'd recently returned to late-night TV, had a lot of fun with this musical. It was one of these bits that helped me get through my depressing time losing my cat. I played it over and over again and it just kept making me laugh. To this day, I can still sing all of the lyrics (Marie knows them as well now) and it still makes me laugh. I also think of my cat, but mainly I think of the laughs. I hope you enjoy this video as much as I do.

Silence is Golden

Marie and I went to the movies yesterday. She works for a studio, and they were having an early screening of the new Spider-Man movie. I was excited because I enjoyed the last film and I knew I wouldn't get to see it opening weekend and didn't want anything spoiled. This was perfect!

We got to the theater early enough to be first in line, only about 20 minutes before they started seating. I like getting to the movies early. It reduces the stress for what's supposed to be a diversion. It also helps to get perfect seats. Our showing was in The Cary Grant Theater at Sony. I made sure we sat in the row closest to the mixing console in the center. This is key for two things. First, Marie can't sit close to a screen with a lot of activity going on and second I wanted to hear the sound as close to the way the mixers heard it. From a technical point of view, these seats were perfect. No motion sickness and a perfect surround sound experience.

However my perfect movie going experience was one of the worst theatrical experiences I've had. The showing we went to was at 12:45 on a Saturday afternoon. I wound up sitting next to three children who looked to be no older than 6. Their guardians (parents? grandparents?) didn't seat the kids between them but rather to the right of where they sat, meaning there was no one between me and the last kid. They talked and made noise before the movie, but I was hoping once the bright shiny things showed up on screen they'd be into that and would be quiet. That didn't happen. To be fair, even the kid I was sitting next to was asking his friend to be quiet. I also asked him, which really made me feel like a bully. It didn't matter, he was never quiet. Even annoyed friend made sounds with a plastic wrapper during critical quiet scenes and I know I missed lines of dialogue. So please don't ask me what I thought of Spider-Man 2. My experience was so tainted by these little brats that I didn't enjoy my time out and I don't know what I think of the movie. Maybe I'll watch it again when it's out on video.

Introduction

My name is Neil. I live in southern California. I'm recently married and have a lot of great friends. Growing up I loved music and movies, and here in LA I get to experience them in ways I never imagined possible. We have the finest movie theaters and a repertory program like you wouldn't believe. There are so many film music concerts and events that I'm taking a break from them, which I plan on writing about at a later date.

My goal with this blog is to write about what interests me. That's probably every blogs goal, now that I think of it. What I suppose I'll be doing here is not sticking with one subject. This isn't going to be "Neil's Star Trek Blog" or "Neil's Awesome Disneyland" blog (although both could be topics).

Image courtesy of the LA Times

I could write about yesterday, where my wife and I went to a Phillies game taking public transportation in LA. That blog could have a lot written about how much I hate the TAP card system, and it's lack of feedback at terminals. I already have some topics in mind, which is why I started this thing in the first place.

Together, we'll see how this goes. I can't promise exciting things, but maybe we can have some discussions that will lead to exciting things. And if not, at least I can vent.